Norman residents voted against implementing a highly-discussed stormwater utility yesterday in a special election.
The stormwater utility would have helped with flooding and water quality issues by introducing a new fee to home and business owners.
OU professor and former Norman Mayor Cindy Rosenthal said the city will now have to find other areas to pull money from in order to deal with water issues.
Rosenthal said the $1.6 million in funding will now have to come from somewhere else in the city's budget. “There is no new money,” Rosenthal said.
An example of this would be pulling funds from departments like Parks and Recreation, which includes the Senior Citizen Center and kids' recreation programs, Rosenthal said.
Now that the latest plan to deal with water issues has been rejected, the quality of water will continue to depend on how long it will take the city to come up with a different plan, Rosenthal said.
“The longer it takes, the longer the city goes without plans to address the water quality issues we have,” Rosenthal said. “Voters were loud and clear. Now the city will have to respond to major concerns and try again.”
Out of 16,000 votes, 71 percent of voters said no to the stormwater utility, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board unofficial results.
